BEFORE BECOMING A FREELANCER...[CREATIVE EDITION]

back on here to share some ✨ tips & tricks ✨ as a person working in advertising – who often occupies the additional role of project manager...now being PM for a bunch of clients has honestly taken a lot of coordination.

as we get into the season of winter internships/jobs, i truly hope this helps in some way!

pre-face: i'm not naturally the best organiser (i probably came out of the womb born 2 be messy bah...) but being a freelancer, being your own team and having every bit of comms fall on your own shoulders – means i have to force myself to adopt some good practises.

1️⃣ make use of Google ecosystem. as the PM/creative coordinator, your job starts off-site, baby...you need to come prepared with 1. a place to park all production lists/shotlists, timeline (accountability for client and yourself), and a folder for team to house the deliverables (accountability for creative team).

* on-site, you have to be the most professional/put-together, so having this ecosystem of folders and documents will help you manage all the floating delioverables and peg everyone along the timeline.

2️⃣ check-ins. i used to skip this part because i felt that...email threads were enough to ensure that we're all on-time, in-the-know and in-the-understanding of what to do. when i was younger, i also relied on these check-ins to help me – so make sure to follow the 3 part rule. weekend before shoot, clear comms to the team locking in and confirming the upcoming shoot. week of Monday, check in again. day before, you better send one more message. FOLLOW-UP after by thanking the teams involved (because everyone's hauling ass here) and also clearly spell out deliverables and turnaround time underneath the thank you, to ensure that the energy is sustained to deliver after.

3️⃣ now we get into the nitty-gritties. whether you're a freelancer/intern/full-time/part-timer on these sorta projects, you need to always go in with ideas and references. kid you not, i feel like secondary school/jc citations – the practise of incorporating knowledge from other projects – really aids you in this. i know we always say that creative industry is more out-of-classroom skillsets, but it also takes research to produce sharp and on-brand deliverables. be prepared to think in both VISUAL and TEXTUAL formats.

1. google sheets / google document with table for SHOTLISTS. categorisation is your best friend – know to include quantity, type of shot, subject. if possible, LINK your sources.

2. pinterest board/google table with 2-3 visual references. although you could be working with an incredibly skilled creative team, you need to be clear on the AD/vision of what needs to be produced. you're managing both the raw resource (technical creatives) and clients' expectations...so chin up, buttercup – but also get super organised with the wants of both sides. SOMETIMES you need to even have hardcopies of your shotlists and designs. if it's necessary, print it out. it;'s better to be clear than sorry – apologising later on for off-brand shots will not give you an additional shoot...

4️⃣ PREP:

depending on the scale of set, we have a few things to prepare.

a. welfare – what does that look like for the client and creative? even if it's just snacks or drinks, these things help on shoot and when the atmosphere gets tense because of many items on the timeline.

b. human assists – ok this is smth i label things like 'tissue', 'tape'/extra logs that are specific to your client and industry niche. you need to chase your client to ask for these in case we need to swap in items on-shoot.

c. your ps and qs. be hella polite, be punctual, be present – your Ps. managing a project is also about maaad interpersonal skills. as an intern and then an FT on projects like these, i've learnt a lot from gracious supervisors and team-members who are unafraid to be considerate of one another (client and creative, and vice-versa). qs – it's likely that both client and creative will be exhausted from the entire process of the shoot. so you've gotta remember that PM also stands for people-management. everyone deserves a thankful for cooperating that day and beyond, when deliverables are met. make sure that gratitude is felt on behalf of yourself & client.

That’s all for now.. gotta go on shoot tmr (ironically!) 🫡

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